ABSTRACT
But the predicaments of postcolonial Africa are quite different from those of colonial Africa. If following the lines of normative reasoning that flow
from the American and French Revolutions, then sovereignty inheres ultimately not in the state, but in the citizenry, and is associated with the rights of peoples, although it may be exercised by their representatives. Such international moral, legal, and political ideas as the right of selfdetermination and the right of development are direct expressions of this understanding of sovereignty, but such an understanding has not yet formally conditioned the interplay between state, society, and the organized international community.
